Instagram Tips for Coaches

Episode Transcript:

Welcome back to another episode of the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. I have some Instagram tips for you today. So sit back, relax and enjoy.

I don't know you, but I love using Instagram in my business, but sometimes it might feel like you're just on a hamster wheel trying to post one day and then you got to post on another day. And when are you ever going to catch up? You're running out of things to talk about. And are people tired of the things you're talking about? You second guess everything you do, you feel like your feed and your stories and all of the other features of Instagram aren't as good as this person. And oh, we could just, you know, get analysis paralysis by thinking about it, right? But Instagram is such a powerful tool to get clients. I don't want you to miss out on how potent it actually is. So I wanted to share with you exactly what I do, because I think that it's a great starting point for you.

I have seven daily themes for you to use because I know that one of the struggles for most people on Instagram is thinking of what to say every single day. They think that it needs to be just this profound message and know when they don't have it, they don't do anything. And then pretty soon they're not posting for days, weeks, months, and people forget or wonder whatever happened to that person. Now I don't want that to happen to you. So I really want to share with you how I stay consistent with posting on Instagram. I actually post twice a day and you don't have to post twice a day. I actually share at work once and then I create another one.  

I love using tailwind. Here's a bonus tip: I use tailwind to find amazing content from other people on Instagram to give them more visibility. I of course credit their content. And then I also post my own. So it's a 50/50 mix every single day. And I want to show you how I can actually sustain that. I got a lot going on. And if you don't feel like you have the time to do it, if I have the time to do it, you can do it. And this is how: Number one- having a healthy blend. My feed- I could best describe it as organized chaos. And that's how my dad would describe my room growing up. And he would say, I love your room. You have so much going on in here. It's like organized chaos. And that is exactly how I can describe my feed. It is not polished. It does not follow what I used to do years ago, having that really polished feed where, you know, everything was just so perfect and that doesn't work for me anymore.

And that is why you pay attention to your insights and your engagement, all of those things. And I just got bored with it. It's a great way to get started. If you feel like you're struggling with just posting, keeping it polished and consistent is great. But for me, if you're not following me, just go to Lindsay_Maloney, you can see what my definition of organized chaos really looks like having a healthy blend, quotes, photos, pictures of me, infographics. I have it all. And I like it that way. It makes me happy. When I see my feed, it's colorful, it's bright, educational, inspirational, informational. It has all of the things. But staying consistent is the number one thing. That's  very important to me in not just my business, but in my life. I'm a very routine oriented person.

I don't like to be thrown off. Please don't throw me off my routine. I treasure my routine and being consistent very much. So for social media, I apply the same thing because I think that there are a lot of people who need consistency. So it is why I do it. Sometimes it might feel like, you know what, gosh, what  would really happen if I didn't post for seven days? Like, Oh my goodness, I would feel like people would wonder what happened to me. And I don't want that to happen. I think there are silent watchers who look forward to seeing what you post every day and whether you know them or not. It doesn't matter. I think there are a lot of people out there who count on seeing you and whether you post once a day, twice a day or five times a day, you staying consistent with it is not only important to you, but it's important to other people.

So staying consistent is absolutely key for me. And I do that by using a scheduler, which brings me into tip number three, use a scheduler to plan ahead your social media, especially your Instagram schedulers are not something that you have to invest in. There are free schedulers. There's lots of them. You can use something like the Later app and you can schedule 30 days for free, I believe. You can use tailwind. That is a paid scheduler, but using something so you can see what it's going to look like before you actually post it is nice because I like to work ahead and if I wasn't able to work ahead with social media, I wouldn't be able to be consistent with it. That ties into the next one. Planning ahead. I love to be 30 days ahead with Instagram.

I think I'm right now as I'm recording, I think I'm 20 some days ahead. But I will never go under a week ahead. That would be like freak out Lindsay time. I like to be ahead. It makes me happy. So I will always plan a week ahead. I have a non-negotiable task on Wednesdays to work on Instagram. So I'll either create posts, find posts to schedule and share, but there's going to be some type of working on my end. So I can rest assured that as something comes up or I want to take time off, I don't have to worry about still showing up on Instagram because it's already done for me. No worries. The next thing is we'll look at what has worked the best in your insights. So if you have some posts that went really well, like there was a lot of shares, saves, comments, likes, what were those things and write them down. So you know that you can always talk about them again. Don't forget calls to action on all of your posts. That's the last tip before we dig into the daily themes, daily calls to action are ways to get them out of Instagram and onto your website or onto your landing page or whatever you need help, whatever your, your goal is. 

Whether it's a freebie or it's to apply to work with you go to your Facebook group. There's so many different calls to action. We can add, listen to your podcast there, don't just say something and then let it go. Right? We want them to get off of Instagram with them. We'll come over to our house. So how can we do that with each of the posts that we have easily? We can say, you know, go to my LinkedIn profile. We can say I also like to put the link in there sometimes because I tend to share my Instagram post to my Facebook page. So if I put the link in there that I feel like I'm kind of doing two things at once. So that link is there. So they don't have to go from Instagram to the profile. They won't do that. That's too much work. So putting the link in there is helpful for different platform shares.

So let's get into the daily themes because you're probably wondering how am I supposed to post daily about my business to get clients. Like that sounds crazy! We can actually break this down into easy daily prompts for you. So you know exactly what to talk about. You could simply plan out 30 days of content in the next 10 minutes. At least the themes of those days. So number one I'm starting with a Monday. Mondays are something new. You're going to share your latest blog posts, your latest podcast episode, your latest video. And you're going to talk about what's new, how they can find it and then add that call to action. So for me, it's going to be the podcast. I know my Mondays are all about the podcast. I'm sharing it on Instagram and my Facebook group, then on my page on Pinterest. That's what Mondays are for. So if you don't even have a content medium yet to share something new, you need to go back to step one and you need to create that. So you have something to put out there consistently. 

Number two, which would be your Tuesday, something relatable. Whenever I talk about that, I'm an Enneagram five, that I'm an introvert. I homeschool my kids on my own terms. That I'm from a small town. I grew up on a farm, et cetera, et cetera. I always get good engagement because it's something very personal to me. And it's something that I'm sharing that people can connect with. And when they can connect with you on something that is personal, then communication begins. And then that trust builds up. I don't know how many times I have booked clients because they found out I was an introvert. Like that's such a game changer for people. So don't be afraid to share who you are and what makes you special.

Number three is on a Wednesday and that's going to be a quote for me because I noticed that my engagement goes up because my people like quotes. They will share them, they will save them. They will comment on them. Quotes are very popular and sometimes I feel like an easy way out. I don't, I disagree. I like to find quotes on Pinterest. I like to create the graphics. And I like to have conversations with people who can resonate with them. And I've also booked and enrolled students because of posting a quote, no joke. So if you don't have quotes on your feed, those are a great way to just kind of save you some brain room and you don't have to write a whole bunch of things. Quotes are great. Quick wins, I would say. 

Number four, Thursdays are a tip, maybe you can even create a carousel so that there are multiple slides through Instagram posts. So you could take an idea that you have that's maybe in a freebie or maybe that wasn't a blog post or podcast, and you can title it with a cover post. That's like five ways to book your dream clients from Instagram. And then you can tell them to scroll through, make sure you also tell them to save, and then they can swipe their finger through a carousel of different tips for them. So they can have that quick win. Now these will get high saves and probably a lot of shares because you're educating people. 

And to kind of entertain someone to number five on a Friday, you can talk about your one-on-one coaching packages. This has also booked me some really amazing clients, even some 10K clients, by talking about my one-on-one coaching packages. We assume that everyone knows what we do and what we have to offer, but they really don't. So you talking about this over and over again, even if it's the same copy, no shame in it, post it, get it out there. You have new followers that come to your feed every day. So if you're not talking about your main bread and butter at your one-on-one packages, you're doing yourself a disservice. So make sure you create something really cool for them to look at maybe scroll through, like I'll maybe create a photo of me. And then set it on a carousel, I'll do like a snapshot of my packaging and inside the post I will put what it's like to work with me. What, see this one post that I did, where I talked about my payment plans that got a lot of saves and I actually got one or two clients from that. So think about what's important for your potential clients. And usually it's going to be the money. And so think of how you can make them feel better. How can you like the sure main objection that they have that everyone has when it comes to making high investments with you? How can you be sure that for me, I know that I can offer payment plans to my clients. So that's one of the first things that I'm going to talk about. Cause I know that that will grab their attention. 

Number six, that Saturday you're going to do another quote because that's easy and it's going to create engagement, saves, and shares.

And then on Sunday, maybe you could share a list-building post. Maybe you have an amazing freebie you can share. Even if it's not new, find something in your treasure trove of free content and let them know what's inside it. What they're going to get from it. What's the transformation that they're going to achieve when they go through your freebie. Because your freebies should be so good that they're going to want to print it out. And they won't be able to believe that this was actually free, which will lead them to want to work with you because your free stuff was so helpful. Get them on your list and make sure you put that call to action in the post, showing them how they can get the freebie for free. Show them how they can simply just sign up and get it in their inbox. Make it exciting! Don't just say like, go download my free guide. Tell them what they're going to get, tell them the quick win that they're going to have and then show them step-by-step what they need to do to make it happen. 

Okay, so we went over a lot. There are a lot of things that you can take action on right now. So I want you to be able to just, I would say, write down your daily themes first and then see how far you can work ahead. And I'm telling you, the more you have scheduled, the more work ahead that you do, the easier your life is going to be because social media can kind of be a bear and I want you to make it easier for you because it is very important to implement in our business. So I hope this made life easier. If you need more help with this, we have lots of Instagram trainings on exactly what I do in Standout Coaching Academy. So don't be shy! Go ahead and ask me about it or just simply join us. We'd love to have you. I hope that you're having a wonderful week so far, and if you need any help with your Instagram, just send me a DM on the platform. And I can take a look and see how well you're doing. I will see you on the next episode.